The blog of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders

Should I renew my SfEP membership? What does the SfEP have to offer?

What’s the point of the SfEP?

The SfEP is a community of like-minded people, fussy about their commas and always willing to share their knowledge and experience. The SfEP forums act as our water cooler, with 120,000 posts to date. SfEP local groups provide support and camaraderie for many members, and the yearly SfEP conference is an ideal opportunity to update your editorial knowledge, to put names to faces and to network. Then the SfEP offers a Directory of experienced professionals; professional training courses, with new ones being added all the time; and specialised professional development days. And much more.

Who makes it happen?

Our wonderful team of dedicated and patient staff in the London offices deal with the complex admin required for it all to run smoothly for members. Scores of actively engaged members also work to support their colleagues: in local groups, in social media, before and during the conference, in Editing Matters, on the Directory and the admissions and upgrade panels, on our website, as trainers and mentors; among the many other active members, let’s not forget those who take time to answer questions on our forums. In the background, the twelve directors that make up the SfEP council try hard to address members’ feedback, to manage the show and to make things even better for all of us, while striving to stay abreast of recent developments and to adapt to a changing reality.

What else is the SfEP council planning to do?

Our members need – and deserve – recognition of their profession and qualifications that are meaningful to the world outside the SfEP. Foremost among our recent initiatives is the decision to go for chartership. To this end we have appointed a chartership adviser and have met with the Privy Council Office (which grants charters), the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (our sponsor), Creative Skillset, and some of our sister organisations: the Society for Indexers, the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the National Union of Journalists. All of them have been very supportive of our venture and provided useful insights.

We have drawn up a marketing plan aimed at helping us win and engage more members and letting the world, especially universities and publishers, know what we stand for. We have improved our social media presence, our blog and our website (now with over a million hits). Over the last year we were present at the London Book Fair and at several other events, and we are finalists in the 2017 UK Blog Awards.

There is strength in numbers and our objective is to see an increase in the number of our members. We have high standards and also want to encourage an increase in the proportion of members who opt to pursue their continuous professional development and to upgrade.

Getting in shape for the future

To ensure we are in the best possible financial condition, the council has appointed an external financial adviser and commissioned an audit, from which we emerged squeaky clean. Also in the drive towards a more professional society, we appointed a company secretary and are updating our rules and regulations.

These past few months, we also recruited a new member for our office team, did our best to support staff when one of the team was off ill for several months, conducted staff appraisals and moved some of the clutter from the office into storage.

The SfEP is your society!

None of the Society’s successes this year could have been achieved without you, our members. Without you, the society would not be; without your help, it could not function. And of course, we are always looking for more contributors, either to work in the background (for the introverts) or (for the extroverts) to explain what we stand for to wider audiences, as SfEP ambassadors. And we are likely to need new directors come the AGM in September. Think about it?

Sabine Citron is the chair of the SfEP. Some of her other labels are copy-editor, translator, mother, hillwalker and chocolate eater.